Big upgrades are coming to Via Rail’s facilities along the Quebec City to Windsor rail corridor, including the Montreal maintenance centre, as Federal Transport Minister announced a $34.4 million investment on Friday.
The centre in Montreal is the largest in the country, with an average of 10 trains stopping every day for inspection and repairs.
The Montreal facility will receive $6 million, while the one in Toronto will get $9 million. The upgrades are meant to improve environmental, health and safety concerns in the centres.
The rest of the money will be invested in improving other stations along the corridor.
The investment is part of the $444.9 million allocated to the railway in the 2016-17 budget.
Garneau said the government is also looking into Via Rail’s high-frequency rail project, which aims to triple the company ridership to 7 million users from 2.1 million.
“It means making it (from Ottawa to Montreal) in an hour and 15 minutes,” said Via Rail CEO Yves Desjardins-Siciliano. “Montreal to Toronto in three-and-a-half hours and Montreal to Quebec City in two hours and 10 minutes.”
Garneau said he the hope is to make the train system more accessible and efficient for Canadians.
“We set asided $3.3 million so we can go into depth on their proposal, which is an extremely interesting proposal,” he said.
- With files from The Canadian Press
